Genetic algorithms are inspired from natural selection and are an elegant way for finding optimal solutions (in GAs considered as the individuals) of a given problem space (the individuals environment). Their main benefits are their robustness and their capabilities over a broad range of problems.

Three basic principles:

• There is a population of individuals (here it corresponds to "home control systems")
• Each individual is represented by a finite string of symbols, known as the chromosome (here, it encodes the parameters of the "control system")

• A chromosome encodes a possible solution in a given problem space (search space of all possible sets of parameters corresponding here to the "home environment")

Thus, generation after generation, natural selection ensures to obtain better and better individual, which corresponds in our case to a very efficient home control system!